Given the battery issues Apple is facing on their recently released flagship laptop, it almost seems as if they didn't do real world testing on them before shipping.

SO MANY of their decisions lately make you ask "Who signed off on this?"

Dunno, but at least WRT some of the criticisms leveled at the new MBP, OWC has you covered. Or will. At an unspecified later date. For an unspecified price. <sigh>

When I was a kid, people who did wrong were punished, restricted, and forbidden. Now, when someone does wrong, all of the rest of us are punished, restricted, and forbidden... and the one who did the wrong is counselled and "understood" and fed ice cream.

Oh, right! Forgot to mention that one... Dunno (obviously, since it isn't out yet), but they've got that one USB-C port directly under one of the MBP's port. So maybe a short little "bridge" cable? With 90° connectors so it sits as flush as possible?

When I was a kid, people who did wrong were punished, restricted, and forbidden. Now, when someone does wrong, all of the rest of us are punished, restricted, and forbidden... and the one who did the wrong is counselled and "understood" and fed ice cream.

Oh, right! Forgot to mention that one... Dunno (obviously, since it isn't out yet), but they've got that one USB-C port directly under one of the MBP's port. So maybe a short little "bridge" cable? With 90° connectors so it sits as flush as possible?

The dock gets screwed in at the bottom (by removing the feet), then connects via a short Thunderbolt cable at the right.

Monday January 9 marks the 10 year anniversary of Steve Jobs unveiling the iPhone at MacWorld.

It's incredible what has changed in those 10 years and just how revolutionary the iPhone really turned out to be.

But, it's also interesting to look at Apple now, and see how they have changed. Their reliance on the iPhone is concerning to me, and they seem to have really slowed innovation on their other product fronts. The iPhone made them the richest, most profitable company on the planet, but what will they do with their wealth, position, and influence? It's really hard to tell and I'm hoping its just because Apple's secrecy is at an all time high and they have been quietly working away on the next great thing but time will tell, and it should tell soon.

I think there's legitimate worry that the Apple Music division, particularly its content apparatus*, is culturally a poor fit for Apple. I'm not sure it's easy to marry the two in any case.

And perhaps this is a striking example where the two particularly clash. You have one culture with a vested interest in a healthy developer ecosystem. Ultimately, it mainly wants to sell hardware, but it benefits from third parties enriching the software platform. (This doesn't always work so well — see, for instance, Apple not prioritizing making high-end pro apps more feasible on iOS.)

Then you have another culture that really doesn't care about any of that and just wants to sell content subscriptions. Planet of the Apps isn't about the craft of creating software, it isn't about the pitfalls of being a developer, it isn't educational or informative; like any ol' reality show, it's chiefly about eyeballs. That's a fairly muddled message.

The only way they could've made that conflict worse is giving a major segment in this year's WWDC keynote to that show.

Pinning this on Tim Cook, OTOH, strikes me as simplistic. He has to juggle the two cultures somehow, and you might criticize that he's letting them coexist at all, but honestly, that ship sailed back in 2003, when Steve launched the iTunes Music Store. You don't make Jimmy's job** easier by dictating that he can't make shows about stuff the other divisions may have a starkly different opinion on. Just like you wouldn't want, say, Verizon dictating that its subsidiary HuffPo isn't allowed to write articles about telco infrastructure. And we sure wouldn't want the opposite either.

So leaving aside a rebranding or corporate restructuring where Apple Music becomes more Beats and less Apple again, I think we're gonna have to live with shows that portray a painful, wrong view of reality.

Here's what I'm curious about: are we implying that Apple's App Development Centers in Italy and India are equally terrible? Or, at all, more terrible than helpful? That doesn't seem true to me.

I doubt it was. It was automated I’m sure and they likely have no filter for a low value write off or carryover to next month. Did the invoice come via postal system or digital. At least if it was digital it likely didn’t cost them anything extra to send it.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
MineCraft? mc.applenova.com | Visit us! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.

I didn't realize, until this past weekend, that there are four(!) types of 13" MacBook Pro, with two of them going for $1,299 and $1,499, but with only two Thunderbolt 3 ports, 1.4GHz processors. Instead of neutering the "pro" model with those lower specs, what about a stock Air offering in that $1,299-1,499 space instead, that comes with 16GB and i7 out of the box? Then you'd still have your $1,799 and up true MacBook Pro in 13" size (and pretend its next year, with the new keyboard, speakers, etc., along with the 16GB RAM/i7 stock I talked about in my previous post). There's your true "pro" level notebooks (and, if they could somehow work their way down to $1,699 and $1,899 even better.

I just think it makes more sense to offer a "Cadillac" MacBook Air in that $1,499 spot than a "less than" notebook that still has "pro" in its name. It looks weird. You know customers are looking at that and going "why the overlap? What's the true difference between a $1,299 Air and a $1,299 Pro?" It's needlessly confusing and I don't think the 13" Pro, if it's not going to live up to that name, needs to be slumming it down in the $1,299-1,499 neighborhood when many of its specs/features are closer to that of an Air anyway.

*Note that I'm guessing/estimate/placeholding on the clock speed specs above...whatever comes to be in 2020 is what would be there. I'm just going with what's currently in place on existing, known models...they may be higher on a new machine in 2020. Point is, the two lower Airs would have 1.xxGHz dual-core i5, the "Cadillac" could be a little beefier with quad-core and/or i7 option, and then the $1,799+ Pros would have at least the mid-2.xxGHz quad-core i7

I don't think it looks good that a notebook with "pro" in its name does with half the ports, a dramatically slower processor (1.4 vs. 2.4GHz), lesser graphics than the $1,799-1,999 models, etc. (at this point, what's "pro" about it?). When, instead, a souped-up Air just looks better, psychologically/consumerically better in that slot. Apple has, instead, chosen to neuter the Pro model just to have something in that $1,299-1,499 slot and I just don't think it's a good look. It says "less than" and "not quite the 'pro' model that you get if you spent $1,799 or more". That creates needless confusion, debate and coin-tossing. It should all be more clear cut/no-brainer and obvious to anyone looking to buy. You should never neuter/dumb down a machine with the word "pro" in its name. You, instead, bring UP the lower model to make it look like more of something...a better buy that's more "bang for the buck". I think people respond better, in their gut, to that sort of thing, vs. buying a Pro that they can clearly see is lacking in specs/features from the same-named models costing $300+ more. That makes zero sense to me, the way they currently have the 13" Pro models positioned...they're making the Pro look worse when they could be making the Air look better, and handling/covering that entire $1,000-1,500 range.

It's just more attractive/alluring, IMO, to have a "better Air" than a "less than Pro" at that $1,499 mark.

And I don't think people are hung up on the actual appearance/case design where the above would be some sort of deal-killer. And if they are, then they can save another $300 to get the Pro chassis (and a lot more power/capability) if that's truly what they're basing a decision on. Personally, I prefer the sleek, tapered look of the Air and if my imaginary lineup above actually existed, that $1,499 souped-up Air is what I'd get, hands down...basically the current low-end Pro in a more attractive outfit, without the negative baggage of an questionably-named/postioned machine.

Agree with all that, except that they just need to drop the "Air" moniker. Should be MacBook and MacBook Pro; iPad and iPad Pro; iPhone and iPhone Pro.

I mean, what's next, AirPods Air?

And the naming structure is different across product lines. in laptops, the Air is the low-end model. in iPads, it's the middle model. In phones and other bits, there is no Air model. Air used to be the word that delineated the "really thin, light, new thing" and commanded a higher price. Now, it's all over the place.

It needs to go away.

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Yeah, I'd be okay with that too. The non-pro MacBook can just be called that (now that the 12" model is no longer).

Maybe that's something in the works for 2020, when they unveil new 13" models with the new keyboard? That would make things clearer...MacBook or MacBook Pro. What's not to like?

Apple's notebook lineup is always goofy, overlapping and confusing to people. When they had that 12" model, then the 13" Air and then the various Pro models, I'd look at the online store and it would take me forever to kinda figure it all out and try know what was what and the best choice, etc. Certain features/specs from some models would be better than more expensive offerings, or vice versa. There was no way to make a good, easy decision. It confused me, someone who's always kinda followed this stuff. I can only imagine what a normal person who doesn't follow all this stuff must've felt like. They didn't know what to buy! That was WAY too much overlap/redundancy/confusion.

At least now it's back down to just the two major variants. And if they'd do some of the things I talk about above in terms of positioning/naming/pricing (and jettison the "Air"), it would be super easy to figure out, for anyone. And that's how it should be. Nobody should have to need a Mac-savvy buddy, neighbor or co-worker to figure out what they need to buy. It shouldn't be some clunky, hard-to-decipher puzzle game.

I don't know about/follow graphics stuff, so just generic placeholders above, but appropriate for each machine and its price range, similar to what's there now, with the $1,499 model getting something between the two lower-end models and the two Pro models).

I have long championed the idea of simplifying the product lineup to suggest there are "consumer" devices and "pro" devices. The waters get muddy definition wise (I know consumers who use their computers harder than some pros, and vice versa). But the lineup is getting weird with all these [non]descriptive product names. I made a list somewhere in the forums of the product line I wanted to see, but I can't find it. It looked a bit like this:

Mac
Mac Pro

iMac
iMac Pro

MacBook
MacBook Pro

iPad
iPad Pro

iPhone
iPhone Pro

It's simple and denotes what the customer needs to know. Instead, we have this mess:

Mac Mini
Mac Pro

iMac
iMac Retina
iMac Pro

13" MacBook Air
13" MacBook Pro
13" Other MacBook Pro
16" MacBook Pro

iPad Mini
iPad
iPad Air
iPad Pro

iPhone 8
iPhone 11
iPhone 11 Pro

Where the descriptor "Air" is used, there is another, close by product similar in size, specs, price, etc., sometimes at the end of the lineup, sometimes in the middle, and sometimes, but in neither case is it the "latest tech" or anything like that. It's just … weird. And it needs to be simplified. I know this as fact, since I deal with confused customers on a daily basis, and getting those two "Air" things to make sense to them is just plain hard. On the laptop side, it's trying to make sense of that $1299 MacBook Pro, and on the iPad side it's trying to make sense of that $499 iPad Air.

- AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :)
- Stand for something, or fall for anything!

I made a list somewhere in the forums of the product line I wanted to see, but I can't find it. It looked a bit like this:

Mac
Mac Pro

iMac
iMac Pro

MacBook
MacBook Pro

iPad
iPad Pro

iPhone
iPhone Pro

So here's what's fundamentally wrong with that. And that's not on you; it's on Apple.

When they moved to Intel in 2006, they shuffled some product names around (to get rid of "Power", I suppose, even though PowerBook originally had nothing to do with PowerPC).

The Power Mac became the Mac Pro, the iBook the MacBook, the PowerBook the MacBook Pro. The iMac remained (calling it "Mac" would've been weird, and "iMac" was kind of a brand of its own). The Mac mini remained; it sort of fit already.

In retrospect, it surprises me what a mistake (or, well, weird choice) they made here. By calling the desktops just "Macs" and the laptops "MacBooks", they encoded a default assumption that a Mac is a desktop, and only a MacBook is a laptop. That makes sense in 1995, but does it in 2006? Around 2005, notebooks outsold desktops for the first time. So that wasn't even a thing about to happen in the near future; by the time Apple introduced the "MacBook" brand, it already had happened.

So how could they not see that a new naming convention should default to the laptop, and make the desktop the outlier?

I bring this up because of a flaw in your list. It contains four desktops and two laptops, when really, the opposite should be the case. The vast majority of Mac sales at this point are laptops. So if anything, those should have four variants.

Should most of them be called "Pro"? No, of course not. Paul's right; the way the 13-inch MacBook Pro exists in two rather distinct versions is just bad. It's gotten a lot better this summer when at least, all MacBooks Pro now have a Touch Bar, but the lowest-end Pro is still an odd outlier. Barely a Pro at all. Certainly a very different kind of "Pro" than the 16-inch MacBook Pro. And, perhaps more to the point, also a very different kind of "Pro" than the iMac Pro. Or the Mac Pro!

So as much as I like the cleanliness of your product / product Pro alignment, it's kind of a lie. It's a lie because the iMac is already the Mac, and it's a lie because most Macs aren't desktops. Should Apple have four desktop Macs? Well, let's not complain about that because the Mac platform three years ago when the iMac Pro didn't exist, the Mac Pro seemed dead, and the Mac mini hadn't been updated in years was terrible. But if they have four desktop Macs, they should probably have more MacBooks.

Given that the two-port 13-inch MacBook Pro is neither as powerful as its more expensive siblings, nor (likely) purchased as much by "Pros", it just shouldn't be called Pro.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kscherer

Where the descriptor "Air" is used, there is another, close by product similar in size, specs, price, etc., sometimes at the end of the lineup, sometimes in the middle, and sometimes, but in neither case is it the "latest tech" or anything like that. It's just … weird. And it needs to be simplified. I know this as fact, since I deal with confused customers on a daily basis, and getting those two "Air" things to make sense to them is just plain hard. On the laptop side, it's trying to make sense of that $1299 MacBook Pro, and on the iPad side it's trying to make sense of that $499 iPad Air.

Given that they bumped the $329 iPad in specs, and added Pencil and all, I really don't understand why they bothered to reintroduce the Air. Unless it sold so poorly that they scrambled to do so?

Given that they bumped the $329 iPad in specs, and added Pencil and all, I really don't understand why they bothered to reintroduce the Air. Unless it sold so poorly that they scrambled to do so?

I can only guess that they are hoping that pesky "Air" word has enough marketing momentum behind it to sell a few units which are slightly more profitable than the not-Air model. But, for what people use iPads for (and just like the laptop line) there are either consumers (MacBook Air) and Pros (MacBook Pro), and iPads … and Airs and Pros and Minis. It's confusing.

"Why should I buy an Air instead of the cheaper one?"

"Because you're crazy!"

Granted, the Air has a better and [slightly] bigger screen, a higher resolution camera, and a faster SOC. Yep, that will make for a much better Facebook experience.

Apple has spent a lot of marketing money showing us what we can do with our iPads, but to date I'm just not seeing a lot of that in the wild. It's mostly just social media and simple gaming, and the regular ol' everyday iPad is more than up to the task. Those folks who spend days and weeks and months and years in front of photo editing tools and audio mixers and 4k editing apps should spring for the Pro. The Air is a goofy outlier that makes very little sense.

- AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :)
- Stand for something, or fall for anything!

Those folks who spend days and weeks and months and years in front of photo editing tools and audio mixers and 4k editing apps should spring for the Pro. The Air is a goofy outlier that makes very little sense.